You Must Love Me
by Sakura aka L-sama no Miko
Summary: Lina's fading away, but why does a certain mazoku continue to hang around her?


You Must Love Me

You Must Love Me - Andrew Lloyd Webber (Evita)  
A Slayers Songfic  
By Sakura

_Where do we go from here?  
This isn't where we intended to be_

A red haired girl lay on a bed that had seen better days. The legs were almost eaten through by termites and the sheets were gray from years of constant washing and riddled with moth holes. Like it, the bed's occupant had also somehow gotten worn out.  
Her once lustrous firey red hair hung dull and lifeless around her too pale shoulders. Her ruby red eyes no longer shone of youth and were now suken into their sockets. What was once a vibrant, young girl was now a pale and gaunt creature who could barely make it out of bed.  
It was obvious that the nightmare magic she had used so often in the past was slowly eating her body away. It was only a matter of days now before she ceased to exist. Weeks before she had started falling into a semi comatose state where she would sit and stare for hours sometimes days to suddenly snap back to consciousness not remembering she had spaced out. This was one of those times.  
"How are we today Lina-chan?" said a young man with purple hair, smiling as he came into the room.  
He looked around and frowned at the decay he saw. The wallpaper and plaster were peeling off the walls and ceiling. The curtains were faded and covered in dust and moth holes. The windowpanes and full length mirror were encrusted in grime and cobwebs lurked in all the corners. If she hadn't insisted in staying in this gods awful hovel, she might have a chance at recovering.  
Xellos had been very remiss in taking care of her over the past couple years and he was shocked at how fast she and the house had changed. He had vowed to make up for his negligence however and had been coming to visit her almost every day. It was him who told her of what she had called her 'black out' periods. His face saddened as he thought of the times he watched as she would suddenly go blank.  
The girl made no movement or sound as he came up to her and gently placed a hand on her cheek, noticing she had 'blacked out'. "Yare, yare, Lina-chan, what's happened to my little dragon spooker?" he said caressing the pale skin.

_We had it all  
You believed in me I believed in you  
Certainties disappear_

He remembered when he and Lina had travelled. First as reluctant allies, then friends and finally lovers. They were the best times they ever had. She wouldn't admit it but he knew she had enjoyed her life with him.  
She would take odd jobs with her friends Gourry, Zel and Amelia, disposing bandits from villages, megalomanics, and the occasional rogue mazoku bent on world destruction. All the while, he would annoy her to no end unless it got serious enough for him to lend his fiesty little lover a hand.  
Those were the times they were forced to keep their relationship a secret. He had to smile at that. He was very good a keeping secrets. They had to keep it a secret, at least during the daytime when Lina was with her friends, however, at night, Xellos could show the little redhead just how much he cared and vice versa. That was if he could tear her away from one of her favorite meals or a newly discovered spellbook. He had missed having her snuggle up against him as they doze off. These days she was too weak or too spaced out to do anything he'd like to with her.

_What do we do for our dream to survive  
How do we keep our passions alive  
As we used to do?_

The Lina Inverse he once knew and loved was gone, a pale shell of the woman remianed, dying. He should have expected this. After all no one could last long once they began practicing nightmare magic, and she was only a human. The magic might have kept her alive this long, but she was not immortal like him.  
She was lucky to live as long as she has. No mortal he knew ever had lasted so long as she. "Kawaiso na, (Poor thing)" he said brushing the strands of hair that covered her face. He truly pitied her. She had the damned luck to watch her friends grow old and die while she remained young as ever.  
First to go was the swordsman Gourry, who died of old age, followed by his wife Sylphiel, the innocent and sweet shrine maiden of New Sairaag a year later. Lina had been heartbroken when she learned of her longtime friend's death. So distraught was she that she would have practically thrown herself into the grave if he and Zel hadn't stopped her.  
Queen Amelia died decades later due to complications during childbirth. Though greatly saddened by the news, Lina was too far away at the time to attend the funeral. As for Zelgadis, no one had heard of the chimera since Amelia's death and that had been the start of the redhead's decline.  
Lina still had deep feelings for the pessimistic man and, not to hear from him worried her something fierce. For a while she helped Firia with her pottery shop while the ryuuzoku shrine maiden took care of baby Val, but Lina soon grew tired of that and missed the comeraderie of traveling with friends. So she took off to find adventure and hopefully some news of Zelgadis.  
On the way, she had come across Xellos and was actually glad to have him around for once. They hadn't seen each other since Amelia's death and she was extremely lonely for the company. That was centuries ago.  
Lina and Xel had met again some decades ago and she had begun to desperately cling to Xel fearing he too would vanish from her life. He would have relished the privacy they now had, but he too found himself missing the others. Only he remained by her side now since Firia was permanently out of the picture. She had her hands full with Val now that he'd grown up some. Only he cared enough to look after the once violently independent Lina Inverse.

_Deep in my heart, I'm concealing  
Things that I'm longing to say  
Scared to confess what I'm feeling  
Frightened you'll slip away  
You must love me  
You must love me_

"Lina..." he said, his face greatly saddened by the memories and his lover's current state of health. He carefully helped her to a sitting position as he sat moved to sit behind her. Leaning the now too fragile girl against his chest, he picked up a brush from the bedside table and began to gently brush her long red hair.  
He wanted to say more, but found he couldn't, not able to bear the thought of losing her if he dared to speak the words in his heart. "Forgive me," was all he could get out. He hadn't done anything to make her angry since she learned she was dying and she had forgiven him for not visiting so much before. He just wanted to apologize for all those things he'd done to her so long ago before it was too late.  
Pulling the hair to one side, he bent his head and kissed her neck, lingering there before going back to brushing the unruly hair. 'I love you,' he said to himself.

_Why are you at my side?  
How can I be any use to you now?  
Give me a chance and you'll see how nothing has changed_

Her eyes blinked for a moment, not recognizing where she was. Then she remembered and wished she hadn't. She was in her house, the one Xel had given her so she could be closer to him when his orders forced him to remain at his master's side. Though he had been very remiss over the past years, but she'd already forgiven him that weeks ago. Only it had to fade away, like her. All of its beauty and splendor had turned into dross.  
Frowning to herself, she wondered how she could let it fall into such decay. She was about to get up and at least attempt to clean the room a little when she felt something, no someone, gently braiding her hair. 'Who?' Turning her head slightly, she saw purple hair and a pair of slitted amethyst eyes.  
'Xellos? Why?' Why was he here? Why was he being so gentle to her now when she could hardly move? Why did he stay here now that she could no longer be of any use to him or his master.  
"Feeling better, are we?" he said smiling, gladdened she had come out of her semi-comatose state while he was here. "Hold still, pet. I'm almost finished." He took a satin purple ribbon from his robes and tied off the braid with it. The stark contrast of the ribbon made her red hair stand out more than it had in years.  
She looked at the neatly tied bowed at the end of the braid then, back at her lover. "You like it? I bought it today in Seiryuun. I thought it might cheer you up a bit," he said smiling.  
"Thank you," she said, her voice barely a whisper in the dark room.  
"You look lovely," he said kissing her cheek.  
She knew he only said it to cheer her up. She knew what she looked like now and didn't like it one bit. That was part of the reason she would black out. The others were the fact that no matter how hard they looked in the past, neither she nor Xellos could find any sign of Zelgadis and the fact that she was dying. The black outs had been her subconscious' way of running away from it all.

_Deep in my heart, I'm concealing  
Things that I'm longing to say  
Scared to confess what I'm feeling  
Frightened you'll slip away  
You must love me_

Lina was truly frightened. She could sense it was only a matter of days now and then her extremely long life would finally come to an end. She was now beginning to regret what she had said when she first learned she was dying.

"So this is what happens to the great Lina Inverse," she said bitterly. "She gets eaten alive slowly by her own magic."  
Xellos looked at her, his compassion and love hidden behind closed eyes. "There is a way to stop it, Lina-chan," he said.  
"Forget it, namagomi! I'm a human and I'm going to stay a human!" She then stormed out of the shrine of healers.  
"So be it," he said softly, he was obviously hurt by her rejection. He should have known she hadn't really loved him. After all, who ever heard of anyone loving a mazoku? "Sayonara, love."

That was over fifty years ago and she was glad she and Xel had patched things up. She didn't want to leave this world angry at him. She loved him too much. But still, was that such a good choice then? It may have then, but looking back, she realized had she accepted his offer, it would have saved her from a load of suffering and she'd be able to continue doing what she had always done in the past.  
His arms were now wrapped around her, holding her tight, but not enough to hurt. She leaned back into the warmth, forcing herself to stay lucid.  
Xellos just held her, placing his chin on her head when she leaned back against him. "Lina-chan..." he begun again. Why couldn't he get those damned words out? They were just three, tiny, insignificant words so why were they so hard to say?  
"Do it Xel," came her almost inaudible whisper.  
He thought he was daydreaming about what she could have said then, but when she repeated it, the sound adn tone of her voice all too real to be any daydream.  
"Are you sure?" he asked not daring to hope.  
"Xel... I... I love you," she said making sure he'd be able to hear her this time.  
The three words he'd been dead sure he'd never hear said to him, had been said. By her. What he longed to her had finally been uttered from her lips.  
And for the first time, he felt the lump in this throat vanish. "Mo aishiteru, Lina-chan," he said kissing her ear, making her squirm a little as his voice tickled her earlobe. He asked her one last time and she nodded.  
Laying her on her back, he gently brushed the braid aside before kissing her neck. She purred as he began to lick at the soft, tender flesh. She gasped as as sudden pain hit her neck to be quickly followed by an sucking sensation, which she found rather pleasureable.  
"Keep your eyes open, Lina-chan. Don't let yourself fall asleep whatever you do. Just keep looking at me," he said then went back to drinking the sweet wine that was her blood.

Lina woke up feeling better than she had in years. She felt as if she could take on the world and several others. The new life her lover had given her was better than she'd ever imagine. Her senses were heightened to such a degree that she could now see each and every thread woven into the soft linen covering them. And she now could hear from miles away.  
Sensing his mate was now awake, Xellos rolled onto his side to face her. "And how are we today, Lina-chan?" he asked smiling, but kept his eyes open.  
Deciding not to tell him, but show him, Lina tackled the purple haired man beside her. "I love you," she said before showing just how much.

Owari ^_^

First things first,  
I don't own the song, though I wish I did. The lyrics are by Tim Rice, and well you know the schpiel so don't sue me.

Second,  
I just couldn't go along with it and write a sad ending. The story was depressing enough as it is with out it, ne? Any I don't think Xel would let go of Lina so easily. ^_~

C&C always welcome.


End file.
